Best of: Chocolate’s complicated cultural history
A tray of chocolate eggs with protective face masks are laid out on a tray at the Chocolate Line warehouse of Dominique Persoone in Bruges, Belgium. AP Photo/Virginia Mayo
For the last part of today’s show, we talked about chocolate, its cultural history, and how it turned into the global force it remains today. There will be a team of researchers at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom focusing on that subject for the next four years. As it happens, that work will be led by a scholar based right here in Illinois.
She joined The 21st to talk about the surprisingly complicated history of the sweet treat.
This conversation originally aired on January 5, 2023
GUEST:
Kathryn Sampeck
Professor of Anthropology, Illinois State University; Recipient of the British Academy Global Professorship
Congratulations also to @KathrynSampeck, who has been awarded funding to study the role countries in Central America played in the origins of chocolate. She will start her research at @UniofReading in January. Read our story here: https://t.co/vlLc2tDPmp pic.twitter.com/S30W2ZVIgO
— Reading Uni News (@UniRdg_News) December 1, 2022